


Erysimum

by Folle



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Like MAJOR Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Folle/pseuds/Folle
Summary: This was never supposed to happen. There must have been some mix up with the powers that be, because she was going to ruin everything. She was going to change the course of fate for every person in Arcadia Bay, and ruin everything they tried to set up.A dead woman walking was going to fuck up destiny's shit, and Chloe Price couldn't be more proud.





	1. Lotus

**Author's Note:**

> sooooooo i didn't like how my story turned out, so i changed it for the better
> 
> *was formerly second chances

“ _Dear journal,_

_Today is Feburary 11th, 2010. I was approached by one of the coaches at school who saw a video of me. I was worried, of course, God knows what it could have been. Apparently, it was some parkour video Prescott took when we were getting drunk behind some diner. He was impressed, or at least I think he was. He said when track starts in the March, he wants me to try out. I have nothing better to do, other than getting wasted at Vortex Club parties, studying, or chilling with that Price chick. She’s cool and all, but I think she doesn’t like me as much as I like her._

_Like, totally not in a lesbian way or anything, but I get the feeling she wants me there just to fill in a void. She’s real, like, she doesn’t bullshit or anything and it’s refreshing. Then again, she worried when I showed up to the junkyard sloshed off my ass. So maybe she does, care, but has weird ways of showing it. God, why can’t I ever make normal friends?_

_Anyways, reminder, I need to wring Prescott’s neck when I see him next. If he ever posts another video of me again, I’m recording his next fuck ses and make it go viral. Ha, you can say no homo all you like, but it’s kinda hard to do that with a dick in your mouth._

_When I walked home to visit my mom, something felt supremely wrong. Like someone was watching me, but every time I turned, or looked around, no one was there. Once I got to the tracks, I ran all the way home and I didn’t look back. I talked with Chloe on my phone the entire way back to Blackwell. It was fucking weird, and I don’t know what to do._

_Journal, what should I do?_

_Yours truly,_

_Alexis “Hardcore Parkour” Mariposa”_

Alexis was aware of where she was, but she was terrified nevertheless. The entire world of cold was pressing down around her, and when her eyes finally snapped open, her world was dark. She moved without thinking, going towards the faint light she could only just make out.

Her world felt like a dream, moving in slow motion, and even though the light above her was getting brighter it was like she wasn’t moving. Alexis was hyper away of every movement, and every rush of water against her arms and face, and the drag of her hair and clothes. As her chest burned more and more like an inferno, she moved faster and faster until she finally broke the surface, and gasped for air.

The sky was grey, and the air gave her a chill, but she couldn’t have been happier to see that muddled sky, or feel the sharp wind and she didn’t even know why. Shore was too far away for her to get to with the strength of the wide, but there was something white bobbing along in the water, and as she swam closer to it she realized it was a boat. A little dingy with a motor, and a man with his back turned and a fishing rod in hand.

It was easy to pull herself up into the boat without his noticing until her shoes made wet schlaps against the floor.

He turned around, skin jumping and dropped his fishing rod into the water. “What the-“

“Please help.” Her voice was coarse and rough, and sounded more like a croak than anything else. She reached out and grabbed his shoulder. She felt dull aches all over her body, as if she had run a marathon, but at the same time, she wasn’t sluggish or even perturbed by it. Everything is wrong, and it made her tremble to her very core, a sickening empty pain crawling up inside her.

The moment she touched him, he jumped and tried to scuttle back as far as he could in his boat. Too small.  “I don’t- I don’t know what you are, but get back-” He fumbled around for something in his pants pocket. “I-I’m not afraid- I will-”

Alexis advanced on him, and leaned down to touch his face. This man was terrified of her, but why? A woman coming out of the ocean and crawling into your boat was a bit strange, but was not worthy such a violent and terrified reaction. “I’m not going to hurt-”

As soon as her fingers brushed his cheek, he snapped and drove the blade of his pocket knife into her arm. Just then, her fingers just barely brushed his cheek, but were soon pulled back to cradle her arm to her chest. His skin in those few moments turned pale, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. His chest still moved, but it was shallow.

Alexis pulled the pocket knife from her arm and tossed it into the ocean. This has to be a joke or something, because if not, what the actual fuck was going on? This isn’t real, this can’t be real. She carefully stepped around the unconscious man, too dazed to care or acknowledge what had happened. The simply sat down in his spot, started the motor, and turned the boat around back to short.

It was the wind in her hair that got her thinking. The wet strands whipped around in the wind, and reminded her of running. She remembers running. It was dark, and windy, and she was terrified. Alexis can’t remember what of, but something was after her. Something was after her, slowly and carefully following its prey, stalking for months.

She remembers the paranoia, the itch in her skin telling her to get the hell out of town, telling her to run as far and fast as she could. Get away from the monster in the shadows slowly growing closer over the months. It wanted her and her soul, every raw and pure thing about herself that she kept locked away. The only person she told…

Amber. Rachel Amber knew. She had to know, she remembers telling her that if anything happened, that she needed to read her journal. She couldn’t tell Price. Why would she worry her like that? She didn’t need to know until something happened. And if her journal went missing along with her, there was always the photograph…

Alexis rarely took selfies. In fact, she only took one once. And when she took that selfie, she caught her monster. She was too terrified to look at it, so she hid it away with the only person who she knew liked her enough to not destroy it, but disliked her enough to not keep it anywhere it could be found.

The streets were dark when Alexis finally crawled out of the boat, and dragged her self along the docks. Everything weighed her down. She doesn’t remember changing her clothes. The memory was foggy and vague, but she was certain she was wearing her track clothes. Dolphin shorts, a sports bra, her school jacket. But as she ducked her heard to avoid the stare of another stranger along the street, she noted otherwise.

Her favorite yellow button up was soggy and discolored, her jeans were ripped and torn up, her track sneakers were just as, if not more, waterlogged as her shirt and squelched every time she took a step, and the vintage denim jacket she got from a garage sale was dark and made a steady drip of water.

The street she was going down started looking familiar, and even though she thought she was making her way home to her mother, is wasn’t that kind of familiar. Alexis didn’t even realize where she was until she stood square in front of Price’s house

The key that was hidden under a “Live, Love, Laugh” stone was still there, albeit, a worm was wrapped around it. Alexis slipped into the dark house, unnoticed, and carefully climbed the stairs. The house had a different kind of smell to it, but it was still the same place, and she could make her way through it blindfolded.

The lights under Price’s door were still on, and she could hear music coming from it. Music… It wasn’t anything she was used to listening to but it was nice… She always geared to vintage shit, piano shit, or any punk shit she could rock to. But this was Price, she always liked her weird obscure hipter punk rock shit.

She approached the door and softly knocked four times, and stood there with her head hung. Her hair was in clumps, and was still soaked. It was plastered to her marble pale skin, contrasting like strokes of black ink against a fresh sheet of linen. Her body was shaking again, and it became more unbearable as she heard footsteps approach the door.

Price only opened the door, but it was enough for a sliver of golden light to be cast over Alexis’ eye, and she stood there, dripping sea water and shivering and wanting to cry more than anything as soon as she sees the first glimpse of Chloe Price’s eyes.


	2. Purple Hyacinth

_“Dear journal,_

_Today is March 10th, 2010. Jefferson got peeved at me, again. He keeps going on about how I’m “special” and “have a magic touch with film”, but he wants to see something other than religion. Says every great photographer has a variety of subjects. Like fuck if I care, photography isn’t even my passion. He knows this, but honestly, I don’t think he cares about my opinion at all. Just another teacher who wants students to copy him._

_Okay, well, maybe he has taught me somethings, but fuck photography, film is what I’m good at. I don’t want to share them with anyone, but I really like my skits, but one day I hope I can really test the cut of my sails._

_I taped in a floppy disk with my latest song in it. I always get asked why I even own floppy disks any more, and like personally I think they suck ass but they’re thin and I can fit them in you, journal._

_Speaking of music, I gave Chase some more of my songs today, and she liked them! She can be a real bitch sometimes, but she’s the only student on campus that cares about my music at all. Sure, the Vortex Club relies too much on my sick synth pop shit, but like my real shit? All that mopey, anxiety inducing shit that makes you cry? She actually likes it, and was texting me nonstop about getting her a copy of my latest tracks._

_I invited her over for an actual dinner so I could give them to her, and also so she can eat an actual home cooked meal. For all of the money the school gets, their cafeteria food is worse than what they serve to prisoners. She tried acting all snooty, but she loved it. We watched a movie after that, Sleeping Beauty. Chase actually enjoyed it, which was a surprise. I got it in my head that she was too good for cartoons, but nevertheless, she was crying._

_On a completely unrelated note, those gardenia roots I ordered are in ;^)_

_I tried out for the track team today, hoping to hear back soon, but I think I blew it out of the park._

_Price is helping me install an art piece in the stairwell at school tomorrow, even though it’s going to be her birthday and we could be thrashing it up at Two Whales instead. I don’t know how she feels about American flags, but I guess I’m going to find out. It was a vintage torn up, so I think she’ll think it’s sick._

_Whoever the fuck is stalking me still hasn’t let up. Whenever I’m out jogging I ALWAYS feel their stare. IDK if I’m just becoming a paranoid bitch, but it’s getting on my nerves. I bought brass knuckles, and started getting self-defense and boxing lessons. If they don’t stop, I’m going to Principal Wells and Madsen._

_Journal, thanks for being here for me._

_Yours truly,_

_Alex “Heart Breaker” Mariposa”_

“Price,” it was the only thing she could manage to say, but she was so uncertain with her mouth forming the words. Something wet trickles down her face, but she’s certain it isn’t sea water. God, why did it hurt so much to see her? It was like something was trying to crawl out of her neck.

“Jesus fuck, Alex,” Chloe Price pulls her into the room before swiftly closing the door again. Her eyes were many things, wide, unbelieving, hopeful, accusatory. Everything about her was different, but at the same time, nothing about Chloe Price had changed. “What’re you- why are you here?” Her voice was harsh, and there was a lingering note of anger behind it.

“I… I don’t… I don’t know where else…”

“Whoa, shit. How fucking sloshed are you right now?” Price looks around her room, and grabs a towel from a corner, and puts it on the chair by her desk. She leads Alexis over and sits her down. “You okay man? You look like you got hella sloshed and tried swimming across the bay.”

Alexis didn’t know how to answer, and instead wiped her hair from her face and looked up at Price. God, seeing her face again… It was something else completely. It was enough to wipe her fear away, if only for a moment. The last face she remembered was… It was the monster, but she couldn’t even remember what it looked like. When she tried, her chest burned, and she would feel water start to come up her throat. “I’m- I think I’m fine.” Her throat was raw and burned

“Fine, fine, coolio man. Means I don’t have to feel guilty if I do this.” Price slugs Alexis in her arm, and her face morphs into a beacon of fury. “What the hell man! You disappeared off the face of the earth so much as a goodbye! What the fuck happened?!”

 “I… What happened?” Why was she in the ocean in the first place? What happened before then? Would Price even understand or believe her about the monster chasing after her? The monster got her, and then… She could only assume she escaped, ran, and jumped into the ocean to escape the monster, and passed out from the shock. “I had to… leave. Amber knows- She knows where my journal is, she said she would show you if I- if something ever happened. Did she not show it?”

Price’s jaw locks in place, and she cannot meet Alexis’ eyes. “No, she didn’t.” Her voice is strained, and her fists are clenched. Price’s muscles tremble, and she plops down at the edge of her bed, and hangs her head between her knees.

Alexis gets off the chair, and crawls in front of Price, hands hovering over her arms. She didn’t want to touch, there was no telling how Price would feel about it, but at the same time, something inside of her craved to hold Chloe in her arms. “Did… Did something happen to Amber?” She was afraid to even raise her voice above a whisper.

“I guess you didn’t even care enough to keep tabs on what happened.” Price doesn’t raise her head, but she does toss her beanie off to the side of her bed, and run her hands through her hair. “Not that it matters anyways, I already knew you didn’t care for her much. I bet you’re even happy it happened. God knows plenty of those other Vortex Club sluts are.”

That trembling deep inside Alexis starts again, like when she was a child and watched a horror movie, and would wake up from a nightmare, and shiver so uncontrollably that her teeth would chatter and she would feel sick to her bones. She couldn’t stop it, or control it, but it was starting again. “Price I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened to Amber?”

Price raises her head, and looks at Alexis with the most honest and raw expression she ever saw from her. “You really don’t know?”

When Alexis shakes her head, Price flops back on her bed, sighing. “Rachel went missing about six months back, just like you did. Just up and left. But unlike you, something happened to her, because Rachel wouldn’t leave without taking me with her, or at least giving me a fucking goodbye. Yeah, and I am aware of how salty I sound, but fuck you man, like legit, fuck you.”

It feels like time slows down for Alexis, and the staggering weight from what Price said causes her to lose her footing and topple backwards. “Six- wait six months?”

Price sits up again, stretching her legs on either side of Alexis. “Dude, what’s your problem? You low-key flipping shit is making me feel awkward. What’s your beef?”

The wide, earnest look Alexis gives Price when her head looks up pulls at something deep in her chest. She could tell there was something off, or different about her, but Price couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It was something she probably would have never of noted before, but when brought to a head like this… Was her skin always so pale? Were her eyes always a hazy blue?

When she thought of Alexis, she thought of clothes soaked in sweat, the sun kissed skin of her bare thighs and stomach while she stretched out on her bed, and dark, eyes that zeroed in on her photography or music with an intensity that made her shiver. “Yo Alex, seriously, you’re starting to freak me out.” Price threw herself forward, kneeling in front of Alexis, fingers gripped in the soaked material of her denim coat.

“Price, I… I’ve only been gone a few hours. Today is your birthday, and I was going to visit you, but something happened on the way, and then… And then I was running, from someone, and I must have jumped in the ocean. What do you- What do you mean six months ago? I wasn’t- How could I have been in the ocean for six months?” Alexis’ chest was rising rapidly, and her shiver was becoming borderline violent.

“That wasn’t six months ago, Alex. You went missing over two and a half years ago.”

Alexis bit her lip hard enough for the flesh beneath it to rip. Her eyes never left Chloe, but her she gripped her shoulders, fingers digging in enough to break skin and draw blood. “What do you mean two and a half- Chloe I wasn’t- I couldn’t have been in the ocean that long.”

“Fucking shit!” Chloe jumped back, out of Alexis’ grasp. “Your hands are ice fucking cold!”

“Chloe, please, I’m scared as shit, and I don’t know what’s going on. That couldn’t have been so long ago, it was only a few hours, I swear.” She gripped her fingers into Chloe’s shirt and yanked her forward. Something brown, viscous, and foul smelling starts leaking from the wound on her lip. Alexis hardly notices, but Chloe does, and watches as the nearly black liquid leaks down her chin.

“Al- Alex,” her voice is shaking, but Chloe tries to steel herself, at least for the other girl’s sake. “I think- Dude, I think, and I’m only saying this because so much fucking freaky shit is going on, that I can believe it,” Chloe takes in a deep breath, but it does nothing to help the nerves rattling around inside her stomach. “I think you’re dead.”

 


	3. Marigold

_“Dear journal,_

_Today is May 10 th, 2010. Sorry for not updating you on the latest dirt, I’ve been pretty busy lately. I guess my biggest thing is apparently I’m a track star now. People are already calling me “the fastest girl in Arcadia Bay” (fuck you Blackwell Totem!). Principal Wells has taken to calling me “Blackwell’s new golden child”. Seriously, I’m not kidding, journal. _

_This is all a fucking joke if they think that a.) because I got first place in all the events in the last 4 track meets I ran in I’m automatically a prestigious student, and b.) that Prescott’s dad is going to let this fly, not that Prescott really cares a whole lot, less pressure on him to maintain his public image._

_God, what a load of crock. Like, big whoop, I win plastic medals at a race because I can run fast, that doesn’t mean I’m the fucking Virgin Mary. Even Jeffershit is treating me different, saying shit like “I always knew you were a good girl, you just needed a chance to shine through”. Yeah, like a good girl would let Prescott eat her out in the boy’s bathroom before coming to class. God, Jeffershit would probably flip his lid if he found that out._

_Shit, now I want to test that out._

_Price started hanging out with Amber, and honestly, I want to say it’s a match made in heaven. But… Amber is head down a dark path, but Price is too head over heels to realize or admit it. I’ll just chill back and wait to see where this goes. Is it bad that I kind of want it to go down in flames?_

_I started jogging along Madsen’s patrol now, and even though I still feel those invisible eyes on me wherever I go, I feel much safer with Madsen around. The path takes me by where Chase likes to hang out, so I get to her see more often, which is a plus. I swear though, she’s wearing low cut shirts for the sole purpose of me coming to visit her, just to mess with me._

_Journal, is it gay for your heart to pound when you see another woman?_

_Yours truly,_

_Alexis “Mako (fuck you Blackwell Totem)” Mariposa”_

Price doesn’t realize exactly how pale Alexis’ skin has become until she’s stripping out of her sopping wet clothes and throwing them in a garbage bag. She isn’t wearing a bra, because of course she isn’t, that’s only for track, and her panties contrast sharply against her bare skin. Price excuses herself, to get baby wipes and a fresh towel, leaving Alexis to sit at her desk looking more dazed than anyone who has ever popped a molly.

She splashed cold water on her face in the bathroom, but how could that possibly help? This is everything she feared would happen. For both Alexis and… And for Rachel. But for some fucking reason, Alexis is up and kicking and… She can’t fucking deal with this, but she can’t medicate this late at night with step-douche in the house. And she would sneak out, but there’s no way she can take Alexis anywhere, not when she’s more fucked up than Chloe.

Chloe always, in the back of her mind and not matter how pissed she was at Alexis, wished that she’d walk through the door of their house, probably with an expensive car and wearing designer clothes, and bring Chloe into her arms. Or her and Joyce would be watching TV and see a familiar face while watching the Olympics. But now she knows the truth and it makes her wonder about Rachel.

She can’t even mourn for Alexis when she’s still walking around like this! So, what the fuck is she supposed to do or feel? Is she supposed to be sad because one of her close friends is dead, happy that she’s back and even though she’s dead, she kind of isn’t, or angry because someone did this to her?

Chloe as to stop herself sweeping all of her mom’s makeup off the counter or punching the mirror in front of her. God, she wanted to. All of this was bullshit and made her heart swim with a thousand different feelings and thoughts, and she didn’t know how the fuck she was supposed to deal with them! People aren’t supposed to have to deal with shit like this! Close friends going missing, best friends having supposed super powers, missing friends coming back as a walking corpse, like what the fuck this isn’t a movie!

The baby wipes under the sink are nearly empty, so she grabs a fresh pack instead. Before leaving, Chloe grabs the first aid kit as well.

When she gets back to the room, Alexis is still sitting in the same spot she left her in, but she has since pulled her hair back. Besides the wound on her lip, there is a gash on her arm that’s starting to seep the same rot smelling black goo, along with another cut on her forehead. In typical Alexis fashion, she doesn’t even care that her boobs are out, but instead is sifting through all the crap on Chloe’s desk.

“Error 403, dipshit, stop trying to go through my stuff.” Price smacks the pack of baby wipes down over Alexis’ hands, and even though she’s startled, she doesn’t jump, just looks back at Price with wide eyes. “Sorry.” She looks down at the floor, before looking back at the desk and carefully picking up one of Amber’s missing posters. “So, she really is gone, huh? I wonder if…” She shakes her head, and puts the poster down, instead pulling out a baby wipe, and started the grueling process of cleaning herself.

“You wonder what?” Price plops back down on her bed and starts rifling through the first aid kit. Thankfully, Madsen was smart enough to put suturing kit inside there, God bless his misguided soul.

“It’s nothing… Just, I was being stalked by something for a while before…” Her eyebrows furrow and her nose scrunches briefly, before returning to cleaning herself. “Before whatever happened, happened. I told Amber about it. And I’m worried that it got her too.” Alexis doesn’t turn to look at Price, instead scrubs harshly at her skin.

“Why didn’t you just tell me man? I could’ve helped you!” Price shoots up, scattering the contents of the first aid kit across the floor. “Shit.”

“Because Price, you- you’re too _Price_. If I had told you, you would have gotten up in arms and done something about it!” Alexis spins around in the chair to face her. “And I couldn’t let you do that, you would make yourself known to it, and it might have targeted you. Amber… She understands subtly enough to keep things quiet. But I guess in the end, that didn’t really matter, did it?”

Price can’t meet her eyes and focuses on putting all the medical supplies back. She lets the silence hang in the air for a few moments, barely able to hold the flood dam close. “Why do you keep calling your stalker an it?” she asks.

Alexis throws the baby wipe at the trash bin, missing. She pulls out a fresh one and continues on cleaning the dried sea water from her skin. “I didn’t know who it was, I didn’t even know if what was stalking me was _human_ or some fucked up monster or something.”

“A monster, really? Was that the best you could come up with?” The response she gets is a used baby wipe to the face. “Geez, fine, I won’t question you again. Get your flat ass over here so I can patch you up.”

Alexis rolls her eyes, and for a brief moment, everything feels normal, like nothing has changed, and nothing has happened. She picks up a familiar scrunchie on the desk, and smiles briefly, before going through the motions of putting her hair up in a braid. She carefully works her fingers through the tangles and gnarls in her hair.

She goes and sits down in front of price, holding her arm out, the wound just now starting to leak. The nearly black liquid smelled like roadkill and bad fish. The smell didn’t bother her, though she wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was because she was… no longer living.

When Price stitched it up, she couldn’t feel a single thing. Not the needle piercing her skin, or the tugging of flesh coming together. It freaked her out more than the fact that she was dead. But if there was one thing she could feel, it would be the soft brushes of Price’s skin against her, and the warmth of her hand holding her wrist still.

Even as Price looked more and more pale and nauseated, she continued on, tying off the thread before moving to her face. It didn’t take long to stitch up her lip, and the wound on her forehead didn’t even need any. Price rummaged around in the first aid kid and pulled out a few steri-strips and applied them. She cracked out the roll of gauze, and wrapped it around her arm, before carefully putting a bandage over her forehead wound.

Once all was said and done, Price flopped back on her bead. She was shivering, and her skin had a sheen of sweat over it, and the fall and rise of her chest was shallow. Alexis crawled onto the bed and loomed over her. “Price, are you okay? You’re not looking too hot.”

Price’s briefly fluttered before closing. “Yeah, just tired. A lot of fucked up shit happened today. Kind of in the process of figuring out how my life got so fucked up. God, I could go for a smoke right about now, it feels like the butterflies in my stomach are trying to chew their way out. Pass me a patch from the top drawer of my desk, would ya?”

It takes some jiggling, but the drawer finally pulls open with a long, low squeal. Inside are various bits of trash, crumpled up receipts, empty tubes of eyeliner, a cheap novelty lighter Alexis had gotten for her when she took a trip up to Canada, rolling papers, and nestled in the middle of it all, an oddly pristine box of nicotine patches. It was definitely the box Alexis bought for her the last time she went on a tampon run to the dollar store.

She carefully applies the patch to her shoulder before flopping down on the mattress beside Price. Her body doesn’t ache or resist moving like it normally does after a run, or a good cry into her pillow. Alexis feels like she could run a marathon right here and now and still have enough in her to climb all the way to the top of a mountain. But mentally? It was like her psyche was slowly being crumpled and torn, and singed by cigarettes being put out on it, and the very edges of her mind were curling up into bright red embers, leaving behind a wake of ash.

Closing her eyes and trying to find the soothing rhythm of Price breathing and blood rushing through her veins seemed to be a better task than waxing poetry out of self-pity. She could just barely fool herself into thinking that it was another night of falling asleep with the lights on while Price puffed smoke out the window and soft nostalgic hipster shit would play from the speakers, just low enough that they were the only two people in the entire world who could hear it.

“Hey… About earlier, when I was pissed at you…” Price starts speaking but trails off. There’s a rustle of fabric as she rolls off of the bed and crawls over to her closet, too tired to stand up. “Here, you left these here the last time you wer- JESUS!”

Alexis shoots up as Price screams and clambers backwards as something flies out of the closet. It’s dark and bounces off of the ceiling and walls before with astonishing accuracy, Alexis grabs it out of the air and wraps one of Price’s dirty shirts around it. It was tiny and white and fuzzy and struggled as much as it’s little body could before it wore itself out and heaved its entire body as it breathed.

“It’s a… it’s a – Price you had fucking bat in your closet. How long has it been since you’ve been in there?”

“I don’t know!” snaps Price, throwing the bag that was clutched in her hand. “Clothes, you left clothes here the last time you were here.” She carefully removes the bundle from Alexis’ grasp and nudges the bag on her floor with her shoe. Price turns around, to give privacy, and checks under the wraps of the bundle. She was no bat scientist, but she was fairly certain their wings were not supposed to bend and move that way.

“Are these washed?” Alexis comments. Price turns around and nearly forgets for a moment that Alex is dead. In her track uniform, shorts, sports bra, and windbreaker, she looks like an image taken out of a photograph. “They smell fresh, and they were folded.”

Price rubs the back of her neck, holding the bundle to her stomach with the other. “You dump your gross, sweaty sports stuff here and expect me to let it stink up my room? Yeah, no way. I’d rather eat my ashtray.”

“Like you could even smell it over the stench of weed.”

The smile and laugh throws Price off balance, and the sight of her flopping onto her bed makes her stomach twist. Too nostalgic, too normal. She spent two years forgetting the sight of her stretched out on her bed like she owned it, and the lack of it every day after school. She places the bundle on top of Alexis’ stomach. “I think it broke its wing,” she mumbles out.

Alexis props herself up on her elbow, and lifts up the fabric of the shirt, and poking the wing. When the bat snuggled inside lets out a soft shriek, she wraps it back up. “Definitely broken. If Maggie’s still doing that rehabilitation thing, you should bring it to her in the morning.”

In the morning… Price worms her way under the covers, tucking them up to her chin. “Mmm, yeah, might be a good idea. Put it in the shoe box, and on my desk. I got stuff to do.”

It takes a surprising amount of effort for Alexis to get herself to stand up. “What kind of stuff?” She carefully nestles the bat into the shoebox and places it right in front of her computer.

“Remember how I used to vent about Max?”

“I don’t have to remember, you were just yelling about her the other day.” She pauses on her way over to the light switch, hands curling into fists. Stupid, stupid, she needed to make this as easy on Price as she could manage.

“… Yeah, right. Max is back, she’s a student at Blackwell now. I saved her ass from being beat within an inch of her life by Nathan, the fucking psycho. Nearly hit him with my baby too.” That familiar cocky tone was in her voice.

“Prescott’s beating people up now?”

“Threatened me with a gun too and drugged me.”

 “Seems like I’ve missed a lot.” She flicks the lights off, and glides back over to the bed. “Going to have a talk or two with some people.” She falls back again, making Price jump.

“Hella.”

“You’re really still saying that?”

Price rolls to bump herself into Alexis. “Old habits die hard.” There are a few pregnant moments of silence, where Price is still as the grave. “Hey, Alexis?”

“Yeah?”

“I really missed you.”

Alexis’ tongue plays over the stitches in her lips. “I know,” she whispers, curling herself into a ball. “I think I missed you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not updating for a bit, college is crazy and im lazy


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